


No Rest for the Wicked

by DistractedDream



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Emo Loki, Loki Angst, Loki Feels, Loki Needs a Hug, Loki-centric, Post-Thor (2011), The Bifrost, The Void
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 04:56:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6270421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DistractedDream/pseuds/DistractedDream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Letting go was Loki's only option.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Rest for the Wicked

Loki hates sleeping for many months after his fall from the Bifrost. The dark silence of slumber only brings him memories of The Void.

He had let go of Thor's hand. He could not allow himself to be rescued, to be pulled back onto the broken pieces of the rainbow bridge, to be paraded throughout Asgard as punishment, as a failure. He could not hang his head with shame over his actions, actions taken when he was rightfully King. He would not face the royal court and humiliate himself so. His only choice was to run, like the little liar he was. Yet, hanging off the Bifrost, with his feet already dangling in The Void, running wasn’t an option. Letting go was.

The Void accepted him, his sacrifice. It didn’t hurt. Pain would have been something. There was no cold, no heat, no breeze upon his face. No light to see or to track the passage of time. No sense of motion after the initial plummet into that welcoming breach. It could have been peaceful if he was not as he was. Loki’s only regret in his long life was that he could not know the serenity of the nothing.

He could not die. He could not simply fade. His mind was the only thing tethering him to the reality of living. Loki stopped sensing his body after some time. Whether his eyes were open or closed in the dark space, he could never have said. If he still had hands to feel, feet to walk, he no longer cared. His consciousness kept a tally of these things, replaying phantom sensations from his memories: sunlight shining bright on the Golden Realm, Frigga's hands brushing through his hair, his first taste of Vanaheim wine. He remembered the heft of the Casket of Ancient Winters, his birthright, in his hands, the way his skin morphed, raised lines rubbing against the fabric of his garb. At times, Loki wondered, if he could see, would his skin be that of an Aesir or a Jotunn.

When time had no meaning to him any longer, The Void sang to him - or perhaps he merely thought it did. There were melodies of old lullabies Frigga used to sing by his bedside, chanting from ancient Midgardians who once worshiped them, once or twice the caterwauling of a drunken feast hall. Voices whispered when Loki knew not if he had ears to hear them. If his brain stopped trying to fight the surrounding vacuum, the songs were soothing. If he thought of how the music was probably portions of his sanity echoing in the encroaching emptiness of his mind, the noise was terrifying.

He sensed his soul fracturing after his mind had long since shattered into worthless shards. Bits of himself ripped apart and yet surviving, like losing a finger or his tongue. Facets of himself were being lost into the dark ether of nothing. It was not in him to care any longer. Caring would have been feeling, would have been a sentiment that was wrenched away, taken by The Void. Enduring was just a thing that he did as being hollow was the nature of The Void. It had no meaning. Nothing had meaning.

Loki was broken though he hardly had enough sense of himself to know it. His form, if he still had one, may have been intact, but the pieces of himself swallowed by The Void would never be recovered. What remained of his sanity accepted this, made peace with it, and in that moment of peace he found himself yanked out of the nothing and into a something and then Loki knew pain in a way no other being ever would. His soul knew a suffering that Thanos' efforts on his body could never reach.

To survive drifting in The Void, to return to reality, to know yourself lost, hopelessly lost even in the returning, Loki ached. That agony caused Loki to reject sleep. The pain told him he lived, that he was free of The Void and sleep, gentle quiet slumber, eased that anguish and Loki feared himself gone once more.

Sometimes though, when he finally gives into the need for rest, in the twilight between the two states, he hears The Void singing to him.

And he longs for it.

**Author's Note:**

> Really recommend listening to Duran Duran's "The Universe Alone" with this fic!
> 
> I can be found on Twitter @DistracteDream and on Tumblr @DistractedDream. Please leave kudos or comments if you liked this! I appreciate every single one.


End file.
